I first met Bert Werden when he was doing wine dinners for customers in the start-up phase of Winestar, when the business/site name changed from WineWerdz to Winestar in late 2000. I've never really bought a lot there, for a number of reasons, but I've never had any significant issues with Bert himself.
His attitude to selling wine is fairly obvious, offer a good range of wines at a competitive (not usually cheapest) price and encourage full dozen buys with subsidised Fastway/Aramex freight. He expects buyer to do their due diligence before buying, hence the restrictive (even uncompetitive) returns policy for change of mind. W&D and Lucas, I don't know how much you have bought from Winestar in the past, but he would no doubt have checked before responding. He must be doing something right, still going strong in a tough business after 22 years.
On a positive note, my last communication with Bert was via a fortuitous online chat whilst looking at Farnese Fantini Edizione Cinque Autoctoni and I managed to get him to offer a decent discount on the wine for myself and my Forum members (he is a member there too, likes to keep an eye on what's happening). I do seem to have ordered more there in recent years, 9 orders last year (not all for me), 5 in 2020, 1 in 2019 and none for many years prior.
